'I could not without disrespect to his Eminence, the Primate of New Spain, set his ransom at less than a hundred thousand ducats.'

Don Ruiz sucked in his breath. He went livid. His jaw fell loose. 'A hundred thousand ducats!'

'That is today. Tomorrow I may not be so modest.'

The Captain–General in his fury swung to the Cardinal, his gestures wild. 'Your Eminence hears what this thief now demands?'

But the Cardinal, having now resumed his unworldly calm, was not again to be shaken from it. 'Patience, my son. Patience! Let us beware the mortal sin of anger, which will scarcely hasten my release for the apostolic labours that await me in Havana.'

It would have needed a great deal more than this to bring Don Ruiz to yield had not the very fury that now possessed him, craving an orgy of vengeance, shown him the way. Trembling a little in his suppressed wrath, yet he was sufficiently master of himself to bow as if to an order, and to promise in comparatively civil terms that the money should at once be forthcoming, in order that his Eminence's deliverance should be procured at the earliest moment.

But in his barge as he was returning to shore with the Alcalde, the Captain–General betrayed the fact that it was not the deliverance of the Cardinal–Archbishop that spurred him so much as his eagerness to crush this impudent pirate who defeated him at his own game.

'The fool shall have the gold, so that destruction may overtake him.'

Gloomily the Alcalde shook his head. 'It's a terrible price to pay God of my life! A hundred thousand pieces!'

'There's no help for that.' Almost Don Ruiz implied by his manner that he accounted cheap at the price the destruction of a man who had brought him to such humiliation that he, the Captain–General of Havana, lord of life and death in those parts, had been made to look no better than a schoolboy standing to be birched. 'Nor is it so exorbitant. The Admiral of the Ocean–Sea is willing to pay fifty thousand pieces for the head of Captain Blood. I but double it — out of the royal Treasury.'

'But what the Marquis of Riconete pays would not be lost. Whilst this will be sunk with that scoundrel.'

'But perhaps not beyond recovery. It depends upon where we sink him. Where he's anchored now there's not above four fathoms, and it's all shallow on that side as far as the bar. But that's no matter. What matters is to get the Cardinal–Archbishop out of that ship, so as to put an end to this cursed dog's immunity.'

'Are you so sure that it will end then? That sly devil will demand pledges, oaths.'

Don Ruiz laughed savagely from livid lips. 'He shall have them. All the pledges, all the oaths that he requires. An oath sworn under constraint has never been accounted binding on any man.'

But the Alcalde's gloom was not relieved. 'That will not be his Eminence's view.'

'His Eminence?'

'Can you doubt that this damned pirate will ask a pledge from him — a pledge of safe–conduct for himself? You've seen the man this Cardinal is: a narrow, bigoted zealot, a slave to the letter of a contract. It's an ill thing to set up priests as judges. They're so unfitted for the office. There's no humanity in them, no breadth of understanding. What this prelate swears, that he will do; no matter where or how the oath may have been exacted.'

For a moment dismay darkened still further the Captain–General's soul. A little thought, however, and his tortuous mind had found a way. He laughed again.

'I thank you, Don Hieronimo, for that forewarning. I am not pledged yet, nor will those be upon whom I shall depend, and who shall have my instant orders.'

Back in his palace before coming to the matter of the Cardinal's ransom, he summoned one of his officers.

'The Cardinal–Archbishop of New Spain will land this evening at Havana,' he announced. 'To do him honour, and so that the city may be apprised of this happy event, I shall require a salute to be fired from the gun on the mole. You will take a gunner, and station yourself there. The moment his Eminence sets foot on land you will order the gun to be touched off.'

On that he dismissed the officer, and summoned another one.

'You will take horse at once, and ride to El Fuerte, to the Moro, and the Puntal. In my name you will order the commandant of each of those forts to train his guns on that red ship at anchor yonder, flying the English flag. After that they are to wait for the signal, which will be the firing of the gun on the mole, when the Cardinal–Archbishop of New Spain comes ashore. As soon as they hear it, but not before, they are to open fire upon that pirate ship and sink her. Let there be no mistake.'

Upon the officer's assurance that all was perfectly clear, Don Ruiz dismissed him to carry those orders, and then turned his attention to raiding the royal treasury for the gold which was to deliver the Cardinal from his duress.

So expeditiously did he go about this matter that he was alongside the Arabella again by the first dog–watch, and out of his barge four massive chests were hoisted to the deck of the buccaneer.

It had enheartened both him and the Alcalde, who again faithfully accompanied him, to behold, as they approached, the Cardinal–Archbishop on the poop–deck. Mantled and red–hatted, his crozier borne before him by the bareheaded Frey Domingo, and the other Dominicans modestly cowled and ranged behind him, it was clear that already his Eminence was ready and waiting to go ashore. This, and the measure of liberty which his presence on deck announced had already been accorded to him, finally assured Don Ruiz that once the ransom were paid there would be an end of the sacrilege of His Eminence's detention and no further obstacle would delay his departure from that accursed ship. With the removal of that protecting consecrated presence the immunity of the Arabella would be at an end and the guns of the Havana forts would make short work of her timbers.

Exulting in this thought, Don Ruiz could not refrain from taking with Blood, who received him at the head of the entrance ladder, the tone proper from a royal representative to a pirate.

'Maldito ladron — accursed thief — there is your gold, the price of a sacrilege for which you'll burn in Hell through all eternity. Verify it, and let us begone.'

Captain Blood gave no hint that he was so much as touched by that insulting speech. He stooped to the massive chests, unlocked each in turn, and cast a casual yet appraising glance over the gleaming contents. Then he beckoned his shipmaster forward. 'Jerry, here is the gold. See it stowed.' Almost disdainfully he added: 'We assume the count to be correct.'

Thereupon he turned to the poop and to the scarlet figure at the rail, and raised his voice. 'My Lord Cardinal, the ransom has been received and the Captain–General's barge waits to take you ashore. You have but to pledge me your word that I shall be allowed to depart without let, hindrance, or pursuit.'

Under his little black moustachios the Captain–General's lip curled in a little smile. The slyness of the man displayed itself in the terms, so calculated to avert suspicion, in which he chose to give expression to his venom.

'You may now depart without let or hindrance, you rogue. But if ever we meet again upon the seas, as meet we shall…'

He left his sentence there. But Captain Blood completed it for him. 'It is probable that I shall have the satisfaction of hanging you from that yard–arm, like the forsworn, dishonoured thief that you are, you gentleman of Spain.'

At the head of the companion the advancing Cardinal paused to reprove him for those words.

'Captain Blood, that threat is as ungenerous as I hope the terms of it are untrue.'

Don Ruiz caught his breath, aghast, more enraged even by the reproof than by the offensive terms of the threat that had provoked it.